


The Circuitry of Power (Sparking, Burning)

by Interrobang



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Torture, even the deepest wounds heal surprisingly well given enough time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:00:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22075855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interrobang/pseuds/Interrobang
Summary: With magic, physical wounds were something that the gifted few rarely had to think about. With a wave of the hand and a sparkling of power, rent flesh would knit itself smooth again, bruises fading from a watercolor of vibrant purples and indigo to the merest yellowish bloom. Organs renewed themselves, blood replenished its stores, bones set and mended in seconds.Master Ikithon had eschewed all that. Denial, he said, was part of the learning. For those as burdened with youth as Bren and his peers, a bit of physical suffering was necessary to humble them in the face of the great power they bore. The mantle of destiny would protect them in many ways, he said, but there were things they needed tofeelto understand.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	The Circuitry of Power (Sparking, Burning)

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in several months, so please excuse the excess of commas. 
> 
> I have a lot of deep scars from self-inflicted wounds, but have been pleasantly surprised to learn that they heal faster than most people would expect. The human body is resilient.

With magic, physical wounds were something that the gifted few rarely had to think about. With a wave of the hand and a sparkling of power, rent flesh would knit itself smooth again, bruises fading from a watercolor of vibrant purples and indigo to the merest yellowish bloom. Organs renewed themselves, blood replenished its stores, bones set and mended in seconds.

Master Ikithon had eschewed all that. Denial, he said, was part of the learning. For those as burdened with youth as Bren and his peers, a bit of physical suffering was necessary to humble them in the face of the great power they bore. The mantle of destiny would protect them in many ways, he said, but there were things they needed to _feel_ to understand.

If they were to extract information effectively, they needed to know what it felt like to have their own bodies manipulated the way they would soon do to others: skin stripped off in paper-thin layers, joints cut at the most efficient points, gouges dug slowly, methodically, almost lovingly with their master’s own hands into their bodies.

To _hurt_ effectively, he said, they must know what it is to _be_ hurt. To be an effective weapon, one must have felt the bite of another’s blade firsthand. 

He never let them bleed out; that would have been cruel, after all, ethically unsound-- a great contrast to the overall goal of their little training program. Magic was always there to bring them back from the brink, but Master Ikithon made sure to let the last few remnants linger, left to natural means of recovery.

That had been the easy part. 

When Bren and the rest had been trained out of their squeamishness and left able to cooly assess the lightning-sharp signals their bodies sent their brains, their master moved on to other pursuits, molding them then to give rather than take harm.

Of all things to leave a mark, Master Ikithon seemed most proud of his experiments with the residuum. 

A slice, a tweezered crystal embedded slowly into raw muscle, the edge sharper than even a scalpel. Lines drawn over skin, power sunk into flesh. The wires of life and power tied together into a circuitry of mass destruction.

It was fine work. Bloody, but fine. When Trent was done with him, Bren felt he had been born anew, each pinprick shifting of the crystals under his skin reminding him of the vast pool of strength afforded to him. It was an honor to be chosen in this way, to have _survived,_ and to have proven his worth. It did not matter that he ached every moment of life. It did not matter that fatigue-- a hellish fugue like smog in his lungs-- plagued him with every breath. When he stood, it was firmly, brandishing his body like a weapon.

And when he broke, it was as a forest burns: a spark, a flame running ragged, a roar consuming the whole of the underbrush, hot enough to melt bone and consume the soul.

\--

Years later, Caleb could still occasionally feel a flicker of the crystalline circuitry zinging through his body. He would rub the scars on his arms and swear he could almost feel the refined residuum like grains of sand under the epidermis. 

Much more prominent, though, were the scars he had placed there himself. Burns, blotchy and bubbling, over his biceps where he had gripped himself and tried to burn the sins from his body. The thin lines over his arms he had placed there by his own hand when the magic had been denied to him. He was not skilled with a blade, but it did not take precision to open a vein. 

Even without magic, scars healed more quickly than an untrained person might think. In a year, they had gone from angry red to a dull throbbing pink, raised and ropy on his inner arms. In five, they were soft and ghostly pale, almost flush to the rest of his freckled, sallow skin except for the unnaturally white twists of dead tissue. 

In contrast to the ghost of Trent’s influence, these scars meant little to him. Numb, a mere curiosity after ten years of slow, unassisted healing, barely noticeable except when he scratched and rubbed them anxiously as if chasing the memories of their hurtings.

At fifteen years past the initial scarring, Caleb was a new man. He left the gnarled tapestry of his skin open for all to view. And if, by the fireside at night, a friend or a lover caressed the pale storylines written there, he was happy to tell the tale of a weapon sharpened, broken, and sheathed forever.

He was not a forest fire, but smoldering coals, embers tucked safely in a grate. He had loved ones to tend to: to gather close, and to shelter with his warmth. Not a blaze, but a man.

**Author's Note:**

> If you would like to learn more about what I'm planning on writing in the future, you can follow me on Twitter @GoInterrobang.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Circuitry of Power (Sparking, Burning) [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22082419) by [pushingstones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushingstones/pseuds/pushingstones)




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